The epidemic of Covid-19 in Finland continues to slow down compared to the situation two weeks ago. According to the assessment published on Thursday 11 June, the number of cases reported every week to the communicable diseases register "has again clearly decreased," the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health said in a release.
Now the estimated basic reproduction number is 0.70–0.80. This means that in Finland the coronavirus epidemic has been fading away for some time. During the last period (1–7 June) no new cases were reported in twelve hospital districts.
Daily reports from the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) also suggest that the virus is losing aggressiveness. On Thursday, the Health agency reported 24 new infections and one death, which raised the country's death toll to 325.
So far, 7,064 cases of Covid-19 disease have been diagnosed in Finland, most of them in the capital metropolitan area.
The number of patients hospitalised due to the disease has also continued to decrease from the situation two weeks ago. On Thursday, there were 25 people in Finnish hospitals, 4 of them in intensive care units.
According to the Government, in the catchment areas for highly specialised medical care of the university hospitals, the situation with respect to hospital care for Covid-19 "is very calm." "The intensive care capacity was not exceeded at any point," authorities emphasized.
1% tested positive
At present the coronavirus testing capacity of laboratories is more than 13,000 samples per day. During the period 1-7 June the number of people tested for coronavirus was smaller than in the previous weeks. The percentage of positive samples has stayed around 1% of all samples taken.
The aim for Finland is to test all cases where the acute phase of the coronavirus infection is suspected. This means that the threshold for taking the test and for people to have themselves tested should be low.
In Finland an estimated 6,200 people have recovered from the coronavirus disease.
